The secret war mission that inspired Goldfinger scene

The opening sequence of James Bond film Goldfinger was inspired by a real mission carried out by MI6 during the Second World War and written into the script by an expert on secret wartime operations.

It is one of James Bond's most famous scenes, showing the agent at his deadliest – and most dapper.

Emerging from the water in a wetsuit, he knocks out a sentry and plants explosives before unzipping his suit to reveal a pristine dinner jacket underneath. He then walks into the nearest bar, glances at his watch and nonchalantly lights a cigarette just as the storage tanks erupt into flames behind him.

Jeremy Duns, a British author researching his new book, has discovered that a Dutch spy used an almost identical technique to get into Nazi-occupied Netherlands.

The scene it inspired, in the opening sequence of the 1964 film, was not in Ian Fleming's book, on which it is based, and the original draft screenplay began with Bond, played by Sean Connery, already in a bar.